Great Plains Surrender

A poem about the struggle against death on the American plains.

Trampled by the horses of stampede and certainty,

Entangled in the barbed wire of a prairie confessional,

I could only make a plea of guilty to the big sky jury

            As the sun shrunk, waning through the trees.

The moonlight on the first night exposed a flesh refrain,

Ensnared in the cutting weeds, the thorny and sickle brown,

I could only kneel down upon this vessel, beg forgiveness

            As the moon disappeared in a renewed blue.

 

There is a rhythm in the pulsing of the Earth

Or perhaps that is my heart beating

Trying like trembling fingers in search of any Earthly begging bowl.

I have given blood, the pin prick thorns tipped with flesh,

The itch, the ticks and other crawlers took from me as well.

 

A surrender to the prairie,

To be the passenger and the disease.

Flaky lips, perched like bark stripped in erosive winds.

Tremble in the appendages, checkered and cut hands.

A surrender to the prairie

To be the passenger and the enemy.

Laying in the tall grass, a mass of mutilated humanity

            As the cycle of sun and moon pass by a final time,

            As the wanderer who walked where I was not welcomed.